Guk euskaraz, zuk zergaitik ez?
On Friday we, Boise Basques (and non Basques, which was so awesome), joined the celebration in honor of the Basque language, an event organized by Izaskun, the NABO coordinator in the USA, and Geneva Ayarra,, both of who are extremely cool ladies and luckily, friends of mine. A bunch of us got together downtown at the Leku-Ona for a couple of hours of singing and talking in Basque. If we’d been drunk it’d have been just like the final stages of a “chiquiteros” round in the Basque Country, hehehe…
I was pleasantly surprised when I got there and saw how many people had decided to come and sing. We followed along a little booklet created by NABO with the lyrics to 63 popular Basque songs by famous poets and singers, such as Mikel Laboa, Itoiz, or Xabier Lete (oh, and by the way, his cousin Nere Lete was there with her all family, isn’t that neat?). I’m sharing a couple of clips with you guys, don’t be harsh or laugh too hard when you hear our voices, please. I’ve included a version of the real deal to compensate.
We all had a great time except for my 7-year old son, Andoni. Unfortunately, he still doesn’t appreciate how lucky we are to be Basque and living in Boise. He got up the next morning, and the first thing he told me was: “Amatxu, who was bored last night for two hours?”, hahaha. (Well, I guess he’s half American, and so far that part is winning. You all should have seen his face full of bliss during the four hours of the Bronco-Utah game!) He will realized soon how special Boise is, though. I’m not (very) worried.
You know? It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been in Boise (14 years and a half, for those of you who don’t know me). The more time I spend here, the more amazed I am at the efforts, activities, passion, and hard work Basques living abroad display every day, whether we live in the USA, Uruguay, Brazil or Argentina. It is simply amazing.
2 thoughts on “Guk euskaraz, zuk zergaitik ez?”
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This is awesome! The videos are very nice. I agree that it’s really special that so many people get together and do so many things to keep the Basque language and culture alive. You are so right to be proud of it. ZORIONAK!
By the way, I’m sure when Andoni gets a little older, his teen angst will make him enjoy his Basque heritage.
You know you are half Basque, right? In the same way I’m half Argentinian 🙂 If you hadn’t been busy, you’d had come to Leku, too. But we celebrated at Flying M anyway, didn’t we?